Fatal Resurrection
by PursuitsEternal
Summary: Two women, who are not what they seem to be, dare to breathe some life back into the Opera Garnier, so long dead and mismanaged. Never did they expect to resurrect such ghosts and demons. Never did they expect to reveal and uncover such secrets.


_Thus begins our tale of two women who are not what they seem to be, in place that carries more secrets than it seems to show, and a man who hides more than a face behind his mask._

* * *

><p>A single beam of midmorning light danced from the arching lattices, falling in perfect patterns across the dark marble floor. The foyer to the Opéra Garnier shone with warming golds, glowing with an almost rosy hue across the moulding and down the winding columns of the grand stairs. Yet even in this shimmering entrance, every reverberation pounded with ominous force, and every clack of the two women's heels pierced the daylight's stillness and gilded grandeur.<p>

They walked arm in arm, as unified in demeanor as diverse they appeared to the eye. The one, lithe and dark. Her long chestnut hair twined around itself, draping over the brilliant blacks of her eyes, dark brightness that smiled in proud irony from beneath broad, curling lashes. Only the enigmatic curve of her thick, sensuous lips added that hint of mischief to her brazen beauty, a face that dared onlookers with its brashness and blatant conceit. And the glint of her eyes shone only the more provocatively, their darkness offset by the emerald shine of her flowing, tumbling gown.

Her companion strode beside her, comprised of light, of softness and of rosy skin in comparison. The roundness of her face, the curves of her body, her entire bearing seemed to simper and scintillate, to tease and toy. The flaxen blonde of her hair fell gently over the edges of her cheeks and chin, every so often obscuring the captivating gaze of her bright brown eyes. Yet, the witty shine to her gaze and the voluptuous curves of her figure fell short of some secret she appeared to constantly keep behind that smirking simper.

"Do you really believe what they say about this place? Do you really believe that people have died here, Gina?" the blonde whispered, her hushed voice barely refraining from morbid excitement.

The brunette looked to her with feigned disinterest, a sort of silent, humored detachment. Genevieve only let her laugh tickle her throat inwardly at her whined pet name of 'Gina.'

Josephine pouted to her darker friend, undeterred by Genevieve's impartiality. "It simply must be haunted, Gina. Why else would such a magnificent place be falling to financial ruin?"

"Perhaps because of extreme extravagance, because of a lack of musical innovation or talent..." Finally, Genevieve parted her full lips into a confident grin. "Or even, heaven forbid, terrible management on the part of the previous owners."

Both women threw their heads back in laughter, their sheer mirth echoing off the marble stairs and the arching halls around them. Josephine gripped tighter on her companion's arm, supporting herself against the almost violent giggles that erupted from her frame. "Oh, Gina, just because it's true does not allow us to make fun of it. After all—" she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, dampening the bright white linen of her glove— "it's our poorly managed opera house in the mean time."

"And won't we take this mark just ripe with profit, with just a little of our know-how," Genevieve laughed brashly. "Conning and managing are not unrelated, Fina. Both require flawless deception and a flair of the dramatic." She twirled her fingers in the air. "Both require us to lie so beautifully."

"Not that we would know, of course," Josephine twittered sardonically into her gloved fist.

Genevieve winked, an enigmatic smile lighting her honey-dark complexion and a gleam of her salacious laughter brimming from her eyes.

But before the companions could burst into another fit of private laughter, a dry voice bid them an unfeeling, "Bonjour." With a sluggish clomping and a mucus-thick sniffle a man trudged into the foyer from the halls beside them. "You must be with Monsieur Belrose, the new manager," he mumbled lifelessly, "'fraid he isn't here yet..."

"Actually," Josephine chimed in with a charming grin, "Monsiuer Belrose sends his apologies. Business requires his presence elsewhere. But he did manage to send us, his associates."

The man, just past his middle age, sniffed through his stuffed nose, his dust-covered, wrinkled features folding even more as he grimaced. "You?" he muttered. "You're the new managers?"

Genevieve smiled sternly at the stagehand, proffering her lithe hand in a gesture of condescending introduction. "Mademoiselle Genevieve de Chartres," she purred, her hand waving in perfect fluidity to friend still draped on her arm. "And this is Mademoiselle Josephine Rénauld."

The man stood gawping, his pale eyes wide. His hand shook as it grasped the billed cap from his head, and he wiped his forehead clean from all the traces of plaster dust and rope-thread. "Female managers," he heartlessly grumbled as he replaced his cap atop his graying, balding head.

"Most stagehands introduce themselves to their superiors and employers, Monsieur," Josephine ridiculed with pursed, rosy lips.

The man began to dryly sputter and wipe the chalky filth from his hands on the sides of his trousers. "Toc, at your service, Mesdames," he spoke with a sudden clearness. "Chief of the stagehands." Grabbing his cap again, he threw them a bow, more of an uncouth spasm from the waist. "Suppose you'd be liking me to show you around the place?"

Josephine sniffed, "Since you've offered, Monsieur Toc, I do believe a tour would be well in order."

"Right this way, then, Mesdames," the master stagehand grumbled, lumbering off back in the direction he came.

With a snickering glance to each other, the women linked arms once more and treaded after the master sceneshifter. As they made the first turn down the hall, the twitters of young voices spiraled off the walls. Suddenly, from across some unseen corridor, a dozen or so girls scampered past, their tutus blurring together in a mass of white tulle, their grins simple and childish. Each ballerina flashed the strange trio an inquisitive glance, not lacking a certain impish twist to their overly rouged cheeks and painted lips. And, each one greeted with a chittering, "Bonjour!"

"Opera Rats," Toc indicated with a half-hearted mutter from over his shoulder. "Dancers, students of the opera ballet troupe. Our... sorry, I mean, _your_ opera ballet is the best in the country, Mesdames."

As they passed the crossway, Josephine paused a moment, glancing down the adjoining hall. "'Rats' seems an accurate description for them. I have a hard time believing such miscreants possess more talents than those found on the occupants of street corners. Running like that down the halls. And who's in charge of such an impudent troupe?"

"I am," a woman's voice suddenly resounded from the space behind them. Her words cut like crystal, and yet the women rounded on her slowly, almost casually as they scanned this stranger. Her stiff dress draped in grey panels from her tightly tapered waist. Thin, twitching hands rested firmly atop the brass head of her walking stick. But the firm lines of her face and the chilling calculation of her stare quickly distracted them from judging the rest of her appearance too intensely. "Who are you to criticize my students so quickly and so harshly, Mesdames?"

The master stagehand cleared his dusty voice. "Madame Giry, these are our new managers, can you not tell?"

She gave a derisive sniff in response. "I was under the belief we had been purchased by one 'Monsieur Belrose' from Marseille..." the ballet mistress sneered her cutting smile at the two women before her. "And you are certainly not he."

"Forgive us, Madame," Genevieve quipped forcefully in return,. "I can understand that as of now, you are not used to being overseen by women..." her brow cocked in

compelling defiance. "But seeing as how Monseiur Belrose appointed Mam'selle Rénauld and myself to oversee his holdings here at the Opéra Garnier, my advice would be that you get accustomed to it."

Madame Giry raised her thin blonde brow in surprising confidence. "Forgive me if I do not welcome you to the opera house this instant, Mesdames. The demands of a ballet mistress just do not accommodate such trivialities." As the heels of her boots receded in their firm clacking, Genevieve thought she could almost her the woman's muttering of "hussies" under her crystalline breath.

"I wonder, Monsieur Toc," Josephine posed her inquiry with a semi-pernicious glare down the hall after the ballet mistress, "just how long has Madame Giry worked for the company?"

Toc shrugged, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he leaned against the shadow-covered, cream-colored walls. "Five years, Madame. Started just after the last pair of managers up-and-left it."

The blonde sniffed in contemptuous humor. "It's funny then, for her to have acquired such opinions and confidence, I would expect someone with much more experience."

"Well, I dunno about that, ladies. I mean, I replaced my senior as master scene-shifter about the same time," his watery eyes seemed to scan distant ghostly memories, his mouth twisting into a grimace. "Those were dark times, Mesdames. I don't think you'll find any of your staff has been her longer than five years..."

"Why not?" Genevieve asked, or more so demanded with her foreboding tone, her words forcing the stagehand back into the corridors of the present.

He scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Oh come off it, you know exactly why most people abandoned ship here all those years ago." The women met his taunt with bitter, stock-still silence. Toc scoffed harder and wagged his head in incredulity. "The Opera Ghost, Mesdames?" Still not a reaction. "The chandelier? You must have heard about the chandelier crash and the missing soprano diva?" Nothing, not the faintest smile of recognition. "Joseph Buquet's murder, found hanging between the scenes in the third vault, and the notes scrawled in red, and the voices in Box Five, and the Compte de Chagny's death?" He strode forward, his head lowered with wide eyes at the women who did not so much as blink in surprise or understanding. "Surely, you heard about the mysterious murder of the Compte de Chagny, found drowned on the banks of the lake down in the fifth vault?" he nearly shouted at them and their enigmatic quiet to his sensational histories.

Genevieve cleared her voice firmly. "You must forgive us, Monsieur Toc. We have been out of the country for some years now," she replied steadily despite his fixedly dramatic stare. "As lurid as your tale is, and as indeed noteworthy the history of this opera house is, Mademoiselle Rénauld and I are more concerned for its future rather than its reportedly sordid past."

The sceneshifter held his stare for a few more seconds. Finally, he turned away with a sigh of exasperation. "Foreign women managers, even better," he grumbled to himself as he began plodding down the hall. "Guess I'll take you to the musical director then, Mesdames. Though I warn you not to expect a warm reception from him either." His voice droned on as they passed branching halls and closed doors, winding their way lower into the pit orchestra with its shimmering gas lamps and wire music stands. "Signore Donezelli?" the stagehand called across the empty stands and forsaken instruments. Toc rounded lazily with another sluggish shrug. "Wait here for a moment, ladies. The maestro has a habit of getting lost down below the stage. It'll only take me a minute to find him." He gestured lethargically to the empty chairs. "But why don't you make yourselves comfortable, all the same." With that, he meandered his way back to the tiny door and lumbered back into the halls beneath the stage.

With a lurching flop into the nearest chair, Genevieve threw her head back in brassy laughter. "Oh Fina, this is too much fun. I mean, really. What more could you ask for than an opera house at your disposal and a handful of incompetent underlings to whip into shape?" She propped her booted feet up on the music stand just before her. "Good thing they're all terrified and stupid, or else this would never work as well as it is."

"Don't jinx it all, Gina," Josephine tisked her softly, exploring her way slowly through the instruments, dusting her fingers over a cello or a flute every now and then. "It's not our perfect plan until we start turning a profit. And you should watch what you say, even when we're alone, Gina. You never know who might be near or listening..."

"Oh, bullshit, Fina," she grinned brashly, her dark eyes dancing in impishness as she gestured around the empty pit.

Josephine turned to face her companion, a roguish light to her own eyes as she chuckled gently. "Mam'selle de Chartres, what would Monsieur Belrose say if he heard his beautiful assistant use such language?"

"We can only imagine what he would say," Genevieve laughed raucously, closing her eyes in the process of her hilarity. Her chuckles died gradually, her laughter softening on her tinted lips bit by bit.

In her curiosity, Josephine stepped cautiously onto the conductor's podium, frightened to be elevated so high above the orchestra and yet suspended still so far beneath the dark, unoccupied stage. Like belonging to neither world, floating between them in shadowed glory, alone. Unnerved, she scanned the floorboards that ran before her face, unable to force herself to descend from her perch. Heart racing, she peered into the rafters and un-shifted scenes above her. The higher she looked, the more terrified her breaths rushed, and the tighter she gripped the folds of her own skirt.

The warmest of whispers broke through her petrified rapture. "Josephine," the silken voice tickled her ear, the deepness of the man's voice rumbled against the fine hairs of her nape. He called her again, and she could almost sense the moisture of his breath on her opposite shoulder. "Josephine..."

"Who's there?" she breathlessly asked to the void above her. But, only more stark silence answered her fearful query. Quickly, she retraced her steps from the podium, her heart shaking as she tripped on the bottom step.

Genevieve straightened in her seat, her eyes narrowed in concern at her friend's sudden agitation. "What's wrong, Fina? Already trying to commune with the ghosts of this place?"

Josephine managed a weak smile as she shook out her rumpled skirts. "More like they're already trying to commune with me, Gina." She laughed softly, almost sickly, as she forced her composure to return. "Seems as though we are not the only ones here with secrets."

"Seems as though we might the ones with the fewest secrets around here, actually, Fina," Genevieve scowled sourly towards the doorway.

###

"Here you are, Mesdames," Toc bid them with the weakest of smiles as he slid a thin brass key into the heavy door before them. "Your office," he muttered, pulling the heavy panel wide open to reveal ornamentation after decadent ornamentation that lied within their managerial headquarters. Tediously tired, the stagehand waved the women in before snuffling and shuffling in after them.

With an approving hum, Genevieve struck matches to light the gasogene lamps, whose brass filigree and etching patterned the dark damask walls around them. But, even their flickering light struggled to illuminate the heaviness of their room. Brimming with bookshelves stacked high with scores, filled with the most official décor an opera manager could want. And, at its heart stood the thick, ponderous bureau piled high and bespotted with stacks of papers.

"_Merci_, Monsieur Toc," Josephine bid her honeyed gratitude to the stagehand, still attending just within the door. "You have been most accommodating today." She flashed him the coyest of simpers, and her bright eyes beckoned a smiling response from his forever-sour countenance. "I should like to give you something in a gesture of gratitude, Monsieur Toc, if it would please you."

Master sceneshifter or not, even his aging face blushed as she slowly reached into the cleft of her breasts, her eyes downcast in a show of modestly. But, her salacious smirk indicated other more knowing designs. Her gloved hand retracted from their prominence even slower, pulling out a small coin purse, from which she further removed a shining franc. The man's jaw slackened into a wider smile as she pressed the warm coin into the dusty palm of his hand. Toc cleared his throat, fumbling to shove the coin into the top of his work boot. "That, uh, does please me, Madame la Directrice," his sluggish voice cracked as he met her amused gaze. So, he flusteredly cleared his voice again to cover his newly won respect. "On your desk you'll find a packet of documents meant for Monsieur Belrose to look over n' sign. You just need his signature to finalize his purchase. If you could just..."

"Fret not, Monsieur Toc," Josephine grinned softly, patting the old man on his wrinkly cheek. "We'll take care of it. You'll have it completed all by tomorrow morning." And with another blushing grin, the old man soon had the office door shut firmly in his face.

The swift sound of paper tearing caused Josephine to turn and face her companion, whose delicate hands slit open the folder of papers—the shining blade of a letter opener in one hand, a lengthy, folded document in the other. A robust grin lit her golden complexion as she set the document down on the large bureau before her. Her dark eye shined with a twinkling mischief. "Do you wish to do the honors, or shall I?" she asked Josephine, a sarcastic formality to her melodic voice.

"By all means, Gina," Josephine relinquished with a gesture of all due decorum.

With a singled chink of pen against crystal inkwell, Genevieve pressed the nib in her hands to the deed, flourishing the signature with another brash laugh. "Fina, darling," she acclaimed, blowing gently to dry the ink, "How does it feel to have the Opéra Garnier all to ourselves?"

Josephine chuckled softly, crossing to stand beside her companion and gingerly touching beneath the still-drying signature. "Unbelievable," she smirked.


End file.
